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It’s the day after Thanksgiving. I am still reeling from yesterday’s over eating. It’s 27 degrees outside with a dusting of snow on the ground and I am seriously considering going out to dig some holes in the frozen ground (it rained all day yesterday).

The Money Maker Protocol (henceforth MMP) has netted me an old trolley token (1900-1933) and a 1913 D wheat. It occurred to me that I can apply this protocol while using one of the All Metal modes of the Deus. I tried hunting on All Metal mode (AMM) before but I didn’t have the protocol, I just sort of walked aimlessly and thus drove myself crazy and abandoned the AMM.

We’ll see.

The most significant development in my metal detecting life is that I have finally engaged the help of the German-farming side of the family in finding old homesites and such. Already, I was regaled with fables of a lost ghost town and the possibility of obtaining permission to hunt it.

Yesterday I went to a very old park in the city. I won’t call it a hunted out park because, really, ALL our parks are hunted out! Anyway, a couple of years ago, a pair of detectorists hit this park with their E-tracs and pulled a number of very cool coins out of there. Needless to say, scores of other detectorists descended upon this park but none repeated the impressive results the two guys with their Minelabs achieved.
The park is, of course, very trashy and, as it is very popular today, the trash continues to pile up.

I myself have hunted this park a number of times and managed to pull a silver coin now and again. This time however, I took my XP Deus to this park with a very specific protocol in mind. Protocol is a fancy word for what you all do now when detecting. Do you dig a signal or not? The answer to that question depends on your protocol.

I specifically wanted to try the spot where the two guys mentioned above found all their coins. Heck, I was there for one of their hunts and watched as one of them dug up a super cool Seated dime. I know they did a very thorough job at that spot but being me, and the reputation of the E-track notwithstanding, I believe there are still many cool coins to be had there.

I walked to the very spot where KansasDave found that Seated dime that morning and I began applying my protocol. I had to dig a couple of rusted bottle caps to establish some parameters and then I began to seriously look for treasure. Not long I had a couple of signals that fit the criteria of the Money Making Protocol. The first coin was a wheat minted in 1919. Cool. Next signal was a wheat from 1918. Next signal turned out to be a very toasted V nickel. I can barely make out the first two numbers of the date: 18xx.

I continued and dug up a couple of small pieces of aluminum foil. The protocol is susceptible to this so I still need to refine it. Not to worry though as my next signal gifted me with this beauty:

A 1917 Type 1 Standing Liberty Quarter.

A few feet away, the next signal turned out to be a 1901 Barber dime with a New Orleans mint mark:

The last signal of the hunt was a very deep 1964 memorial. Geez!

So I think that the Money Maker Protocol is a winner. I wouldn’t apply this protocol to just any park. It is designed for very old parks.